


Midnight Lessons

by Zofiecfield



Series: Kitchen Stories - Bly Manor - Short One Shots [2]
Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Fluff, Short One Shot, mac & cheese
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:34:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28083255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zofiecfield/pseuds/Zofiecfield
Summary: Jamie and Dani wake Owen in the middle of the night with an urgent question.  (Domestic fluff and kitchen adventures!)
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie, Jamie & Owen Sharma
Series: Kitchen Stories - Bly Manor - Short One Shots [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2057895
Comments: 13
Kudos: 136





	Midnight Lessons

The phone rang, just shy of midnight.

Owen bolted from bed, shaking off the start of a dream as he lunged for the phone.

There was a hiss on the other end of the line and a quiet _fuck._

“Hello?”

“Owen, mate, you’ve got to help me.”

“Jamie?” Owen stifled a yawn, straining to hear over a sudden clatter of metal and another string of cussing.

“Jesus, it’s the middle of the night there, isn’t it?” Jamie ran a hand through her hair, already flying in all directions, and mopped her brow. “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have called.” 

Owen found himself leaning into the phone, concern mixing with the dregs of sleep in his gut. “Jamie, love, talk to me. What’s going on?”

“It’s shite, Owen,” she groaned. “Honestly, I did just what the book said, and its absolute shite!”

Owen chuckled softly, his shoulders relaxing. One of _those_ calls. “I see. What did you try to cook this time?”

“Chili,” Jamie sighed. “Just beans and meat and tomatoes, I thought. Couldn’t be that hard, could it?”

“And where’s Dani?” Owen shifted back against the wall and let himself slide to the floor, balancing the phone on one shoulder. These calls were rarely brief and warranted some comfort.

“Napping. It’s been a rough week here. Her mother’s been calling, the shop’s been busy, and plenty besides.”

Owen hummed in commiseration, listening to the familiar gentle clatter of Jamie as she moved around the kitchen. 

“I was trying to be handy,” Jamie continued, “and have dinner ready when she woke, but to force her to eat this would be pure cruelty. Probably double the strain of the week. Happy Friday, here’s rat poison.”

She sniffed the pot and grimaced. “Good god, can meat go bad _while_ you cook it?”

Owen loved these calls, coming once a month or so, from one or the other of this pair. Dani, usually more cognizant of the time, called before starting the meal preparation with lists of questions and hypotheticals. Jamie usually called halfway in, a moment before the fire started, as she had tonight. And he loved it, every time. 

Just last month, Dani had called as she studied six bags of flour, lined up along the counter, each barely discernable from the next, and none the flour the recipe called for. And then, not three hours later, Jamie had called as they surveyed the charred remains of birthday cake, plastered across the floor of the oven.

He pictured their faces as they had been years ago, tugging the memory to the surface. Those two, the freshness and daring of them as they slipped out of the Manor kitchen, hand in hand, on the cusp of the beginning. 

Hannah would have loved this, haphazard calls, burnt cakes and inedible chili, midnight cooking lessons. He warmed at the thought of her, sitting beside him in the kitchen back then. Cups of tea, mashed potatoes, stolen glances and smiles he could have lived his whole life in. Beside him still, even now. 

Someday, he would have them all crowded together in his kitchen again, each in their own way. 

He smiled at it all and closed his eyes.

“Talk me through what you’ve done so far, Jamie. Chili is durable and easy to salvage.”

Jamie shook her head, surveying the damage. 

“Mate, I can’t even describe it. This is beyond salvage, I think. I mean, the beans are rock hard, and it’s been nearly an hour. And the whole bit is turning grey and foamy. Should it be foaming, Owen? Fucking rabid, this chili.”

Owen shook his head, grinning ear to ear. “Did you put the beans in dry? Did you soak or rinse them before?”

Jamie’s silence on the other end of the line answered his question. 

He laughed warmly and relented. “Alright, yeah, you might be right. Let's make something else. What do you have in the kitchen?”

Jamie rested her forehead against the fridge door for a moment, before pulling it open.

“Not much. Some cheese. Bit of old milk.” 

“Good. Take those out. We’ll make a quick-”

The shrill blast of the smoke alarm cut him off mid-sentence, blaring through the small apartment. Owen winced, pulling the phone from his ear slightly.

“Shit,” Jamie growled through clenched teeth, tossing the phone down on the counter. 

The pot, taking advantage of her momentary distraction, was now boisterously foaming over the rim and onto the burners. She yanked the pot off the stove and set it in the sink, turning on the faucet.

The door to the bedroom swung open and Dani tumbled out, bleary-eyed. 

Scrubbing her face as she ran across the room, Dani jumped onto the couch with practiced ease and climbed up onto the back of it. She stretched up to silence the smoke alarm, then continued stretching with a deep yawn. 

She looked down from her precarious perch and grinned at Jamie, who had sagged against the sink in the picture of misery. 

“I’m so sorry, Dani,” Jamie said into the deafening silence left in the alarm’s wake. 

Dani walked over and pressed against Jamie’s back, winding her arms around Jamie’s waist. She peered into the sink over Jamie’s shoulder. 

“Aww, you tried to make us chili!” She pressed her lips to the crook of Jamie’s shoulder. “That was sweet of you.”

Jamie, brow still furrowed, shot her a weak half smile, eyes watering a bit from the heavy smoke still drifting off the burner. 

Dani smiled softly and caught her chin to kiss her squarely, pulling the frown from her. 

“Ladies?” Owen shouted through the phone. 

Jamie jumped, the phone forgotten on the counter in the mayhem. “ _Jesus_. Owen!”

Dani picked the phone up and held it to her ear, leaning her weight into Jamie again, still anchored with one arm. She rested her chin on Jamie’s shoulder.

“Hi, Owen!”

“Dani! Hi, sweetheart. How did you sleep? And did Jamie remember to turn off the stove?”

Jamie cussed and thumped a palm onto the edge of the sink. 

Dani reached back, turning off the burner with a click. “Yep,” she lied, cheerily, earning a chuckle from Owen.

Dani and Owen chatted for a bit, catching up on surface blues of the week and on the latest restaurant gossip.

While they talked, Dani ran a hand across Jamie’s stomach in slow circles, dropping light kisses up her neck as Owen spoke. The tension ebbed from Jamie with each pass, and soon enough, Jamie had eased into Dani, pitching bits of snark and chat into the conversation.

“Alright, loves,” Owen said after a few minutes, “it’s getting late here. Get that cheese from the fridge, and some milk and butter. And whatever pasta you have.”

“Mac and cheese,” Dani sang, doing a little dance as she transferred the phone to Jamie’s shoulder. 

“Almost as good as chili,” she whispered, planting one more kiss on Jamie’s rueful cheek before spinning away to the refrigerator.

Jamie scrubbed the chili pot clean as Owen launched into a lecture on the importance of roux and benefits of large elbow pasta.

Not for the first time, nor the last, he talked them through the steps of mac and cheese until they had the sauce simmering happily and the pasta was hopping about, safe in salted water. Not a fire in sight.

As the pasta boiled, he gave them the final set of instructions. "Once the pasta is finished, combine it all, adding the pasta into the cheese until it’s the right ratio. Eat it as is, if you’re feeling like starving heathens and are willing to sacrifice. Or, if you can wait a bit, bake it for 30 minutes, and you’ll be rewarded for the patience."

Then, he bade them goodnight. “It’s _bean_ lovely talking to you ladies. So _gouda_ to hear your voices.”

The familiarity of him and his gentle kindness left them beaming and missing him sweetly, as it always did. They thanked him twice over, and promised to call again soon at a more appropriate hour.

Just before hanging up, Owen hesitated, knowing them far too well. “Wait! Now, Jamie, remember to drain the pasta water before you put the sauce in.”

He was rewarded with a growl and a disgruntled eye roll he could imagine perfectly, sight unseen. 

“Jesus, Owen, I know that much,” Jamie huffed.

Dani laughed at this and tried to steal the phone from Jamie, shouting towards the receiver, “Owen, last week she forgot to-”

Jamie swiftly caught her around the middle, pinning her arms to her sides and planting a kiss on her giddy lips to silence her. 

Chuckling, Owen sent his love and farewells over their peals of laughter and ended the call. 

Not every call from them was so light, and it was good to hear them like this. Well worth the cost of a midnight hour. 

He crawled into bed and slipped into sleep quickly, a smile still on his lips.

In their small kitchen, an ocean away, Jamie and Dani sat on the floor with the pot of mac and cheese between them. 

They ate their fill, letting the weight of the week slip from them in a slide of cheese and butter and fond thoughts.

Thoroughly warmed and pleasantly heavy, Dani slid the pot to the side. 

She scooted forward into the ring of Jamie’s legs, looping her own legs over. Slipping her arms around Jamie’s shoulders, she kissed her softly.

“Thank you for dinner,” Dani whispered.

Jamie groaned and shook her head, brow beginning to catch at the memory of the evening's earlier disaster. 

But Dani’s fingertips were in her hair and dipping down her spine. Soft lips were tracing a steady path along her jaw, and her she forgot all about her kitchen failures before she could find the words.

The leftover mac and cheese congealed in the pot, where it would sit forgotten overnight, to be resuscitated hours later for a much needed breakfast.


End file.
